Brutal South

My guest on this podcast episode is Kelley Tyler, a trauma nurse working in Asheville, North Carolina. On Sept. 17, Kelley and her fellow nurses at Mission Hospital won a tremendous victory for organized labor when they voted in a landslide to be represented by a union. It was the largest union victory at a nonunion hospital in the American South since 1975, and it was the first ever private-secto...

Today on the podcast I've got two guests, Lucas Smolcic Larson and Stephen Fastenau . They're both reporters at the Beaufort Gazette and Hilton Head Island Packet, two newspapers in the South Carolina Lowcountry that share a newsroom. Just last week more than 80% of the reporters, photographers, and producers down there signed cards authorizing union representation by the NewsGuild labor union, wh...

He’s a frumpy old fart wearing too much bronzer, scowling into the middle distance. He sports a gold lamé robe and wears a gold crown with an ass’s ears. Someone told him this outfit would make him look handsome, or happy, or dignified, but it only took him one glimpse in the mirror to realize they were full of it. Nevermind the dead worshippers falling from his lap; nevermind the skulls on the ba...

It’s been almost 5 months since my daughters went to preschool, and they’ve started getting nostalgic. One of them told me today about a time when a kid hit her with a bike on the playground. I had never heard that before. They’ve both started vividly describing the flavors of popsicles they used to eat in the cafeteria. I got conned into making paper snowflakes this morning because they remembere...

My guest this week is Dave Infante, a reporter in Charleston, South Carolina, who recently wrote  a piece for Mel Magazine  about the curious intersection of White Claw drinking culture and the right-wing militant boogaloo movement. If that sounds bewildering and niche, then strap in. You might want to hear more from Dave after listening to this episode, in which case I recommend you sign up for D...

Welcome to Episode 5 of the Brutal South Podcast. My guest this week is Dr. James N. Gilmore, assistant professor of media and technology studies at Clemson University. I met Jimmy at the University of South Carolina in the freshman Honors College dorm, which was an old building full of lovable weirdos. He had a film criticism blog going at the time that I really loved, and when I became an editor...

This week’s podcast episode is a very Charleston episode. Sorry, not sorry. While the police killing of George Floyd has set off protests and uprisings across the globe, we are seeing activism take root differently in different communities. In Charleston, South Carolina, it’s dredging up some recent history of police abuse and white supremacist terrorism. My guest this week is Mika Gadsden, founde...

For the third episode of the Brutal South Podcast, my guest is the man behind the popular Twitter account @YesYoureRacist . Twitter, for the uninitiated, is an open-air insane asylum where celebrities, world leaders, and everyday people log on to air their grievances. Logan Smith is a political communications worker from North Carolina who has been dunking on racists on the website since 2012. The...

One bright morning in May 1953, Aldous Huxley dissolved four-tenths of a gram of mescaline in a glass of water, drank it, and waited to see what happened. It wasn’t idle curiosity that drove the author of Brave New World to try the psychedelic alkaloid of the peyote cactus. Late in life, he had questions that remained unanswered. Chief among them were questions about perception, self-knowledge, an...

I’m broadly skeptical about consumer activism. The first time I set foot in a Whole Foods, I saw a laminated sign beside the coffee grinder indicating that the machine might have been contaminated by non-organic coffee and that eco-conscious consumers might want to grind their beans at home. My eyes rolled all the way back in their sockets. I just wanted to go back to Food Lion. Whole Foods is, of...